Religious
Freedom in Focus is a periodic email update about
the Civil Rights Division's religious liberty and religious discrimination
cases. The Civil Rights Division has placed a
priority on these cases. Through vigorous enforcement of:

Federal laws against
arson and vandalism of houses of worship and bias crimes against people
because of their faith; and

The Religious Land Use
and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA);

and through participation
as intervenor and friend-of-the-court in cases involving the denial of
equal treatment based on religion, the Civil Rights Division is working
to protect the right of people of all faiths to participate fully in
public life.

RLUIPA was enacted by Congress unanimously in 2000. One section
of the law protects houses of worship and religious schools from
discriminatory and unduly burdensome zoning and landmarking laws.
Another requires states to make efforts to accommodate the religious
practices of persons confined to institutions, consistent with
security and other important needs. In a case brought by Ohio
prisoners, the state complained that RLUIPA required it to permit
religious activities like Bible studies but not comparable secular
activities like political meetings. An appeals court agreed with
the state, and held that accommodating religion but not equivalent
secular activities “impermissibly advance[ed] religion
by giving greater protection to religious rights than to other
constitutionally protected rights.” The court thus struck
the law down on its face as a violation of the Constitution’s
Establishment Clause.

The Supreme Court overturned the appeals court and upheld RLUIPA
in a unanimous decision. The Court held that Congress and state
legislatures have the power to protect religious rights beyond
that required by the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution
without running afoul of the Establishment Clause. The Court
held that the prisoner section of RLUIPA “fits within the
corridor between the Religion Clauses: On its face, [RLUIPA]
qualifies as a permissible legislative accommodation of religion
that is not barred by the Establishment Clause.” The Court
specifically rejected the reasoning that RLUIPA impermissibly
favored inmate religious speech over other forms of inmate speech,
reiterating that “religious accommodations . . . need not
come packaged with benefits to secular entities.” Responding
to the concern that allowing prisoners’ religious freedom
under RLUIPA would undermine prison security, the Court emphasized: “We
have no cause to believe that RLUIPA would not be applied in
an appropriately balanced way, with particular sensitivity to
security concerns.”

Sentencing in Firebomb Attack on Mosque

On June 22, a Texas man was sentenced to 171 months
in prison for the attempted firebombing of the Islamic
Center of El Paso. Antonio Flores admitted at a plea
hearing in March to throwing a lighted Molotov cocktail at
the mosque and placing a second one near the mosque’s
gas meter and lighting it. Flores pleaded guilty to two federal
charges, violation of 18 U.S.C. § 247, known as the Church
Arson Prevention Act, and violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(h),
which prohibits the use of fire or an explosive device in the
commission of a felony. The case was investigated by the U.S.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, and the El
Paso Police Department, and was prosecuted jointly by the Civil
Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the
Western District of Texas.

“This kind of conduct is unconscionable, and the Justice
Department will vigorously prosecute any individual who attempts
to intimidate his fellow citizen through such abhorrent behavior,” Acting
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Bradley J. Schlozman
said in a press
release. We
are gratified that the court recognized the gravity of this offense
and imposed such a significant and appropriate sentence.”

This is the second recent federal prosecution of bias-motivated
crimes involving the Islamic Center of El Paso. As previously
reported in the October
2004 issue of Religious
Freedom in Focus, on September 30, 2004, Jarred Bjarneson
pleaded guilty to sending an e-mail threat that he would
burn the mosque to the ground if American hostages being held
in Iraq were not released within 72 hours. Bjarneson was sentenced
on December 21, 2004 to 18 months in prison and two years
supervised release.

DOJ Suit Alleges Township Discriminated Against Jewish School

On June 10, the Department of Justice filed
suit against the Village
of Airmont, New York, alleging that the village’s zoning
code discriminated against a Jewish boarding school. The suit,
brought under the Religious
Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), alleges
that certain Airmont zoning provisions were enacted specifically
to keep out Hasidic boarding schools.

Airmont enacted a zoning code in 1993 that included a provision
barring all boarding schools. At the time, the Hasidic Jewish
community operated boarding schools in nearby areas. Airmont,
the suit alleges, enacted this bar on boarding schools in order
to keep Hasidic schools out of the village.

Congregation Mischknois Lavier Yakov purchased a 19-acre tract
of land in 2001 and sought to build a religious boarding school
for boys. The congregation believes that boys should be sent
to boarding school when they are 15 years old, in order to live,
study and pray together in an atmosphere that has minimal outside
influences. The congregation applied for a permit, but the village
denied it due to the boarding-school bar in the zoning code.

The DOJ suit alleges violations of two different sections of
RLUIPA. First, the suit alleges that the village has violated
Section 2(b)(2) of RLUIPA, which bars discrimination on the basis
of religion or religious denomination, since the ban was enacted
specifically to keep out the Hasidim. Second, the suit alleges
that the village violated section 2(a) of RLUIPA, which bars
the government from placing a substantial burden on religious
exercise without compelling justification. The suit maintains
that the village has blocked the congregation from providing
the religious education that is a key element of its faith without
a compelling justification. Numerous multiple-unit residential
facilities that are comparable to boarding schools in their impact
on the community, the suit contends, are permitted under the
zoning code, including nursing homes, sleep-away camps, apartments
and condominium complexes for senior citizens, and group homes
for the disabled. The suit also includes a claim alleging violation
of the Fair Housing Act.

Since
2001, the Civil Rights Divisionís Housing
and Civil Enforcement Section has opened 23 investigations
of municipalities and counties for violation of RLUIPA. This
is the third lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice under
RLUIPA.

Town
Changes Ordinance that Discriminated Against Churches
in Response to DOJ Investigation

On
July 13, 2005, the Department of Justice closed its investigation
into whether the City of Austell, Georgia violated the Religious
Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) after the Town amended its zoning ordinance
to remove a measure that discriminated against churches and
other houses of worship. The Department had opened an investigation
in August 2004 after learning that the city had taken efforts
to block a small storefront church from operating in the
city, relying on the city’s 5-acre minimum for churches.
While all houses of worship were subjected to the 5-acre
minimum, social clubs, lodges, and other place of assembly
were permitted without any minimum acreage requirement.

Deliverance
by Faith Ministries, a Christian congregation with about
a dozen members, began meeting in an 800-square-foot storefront
space in the Austell business district in May 2002. On February
18, 2004, Austell police interrupted an evening prayer service
to serve notice that the congregation was in violation of
the Austell zoning code’s five-acre requirement for
churches. The notice required the church to vacate the premises
within 60 days or face fines and jail time.

Acting
Assistant Attorney General Bradley J. Schlozman remarked: “We
are pleased that the city saw that it was illegal to discriminate
against churches, and promptly revised its zoning code to
provide religious congregations the same freedom to use their
property that nonreligious organizations enjoy.”

Brief Filed in Sabbath Accommodation Case

The
Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) filed a joint friend-of-the-court
brief in a case involving a New York man fired from
his job at Home Depot for refusing to work on Sundays. The
brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit on June 15, argues that Home Depot’s offer
to let the man attend church services on Sunday morning does
not automatically satisfy its obligations under federal employment
law since the employee’s claim was not merely that
he had to attend church, but that his beliefs barred him
from working at all on the Sabbath.

The
Plaintiff in the case, Bradley Baker, is a member of the
Full Gospel Fellowship Church, and his faith bars him from
working on Sundays. Home Depot accommodated his religious
needs for more than a year by not scheduling him for Sunday
work. A new store manager, however, concluded that Saturdays
and Sundays were the store’s busiest days and told
him he would have to work Sundays. After he was fired for
refusing to work on Sundays, Baker filed suit under Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII requires employers
to make a “reasonable accommodation” of an employee’s
religious beliefs and practices, unless doing so would be
an undue hardship on the employer.

The
trial court concluded that Home Depot had offered a reasonable
accommodation to Baker by offering to let him have Sundays
off to attend worship services. The court thus held that
it did not even have to determine whether accommodating Baker
would cause an undue hardship on Home Depot. The court then
dismissed the case, and Baker appealed.

The
brief of the Civil Rights Division and the EEOC argues that
the trial court erred by skipping the inquiry into whether
giving Baker Sundays off would cause an undue hardship for
Home Depot. The brief argues that since Baker’s religious beliefs did not
merely require him to go to worship services on Sunday, but
instead compelled him to refrain from work altogether, offering
him only time off in the morning could not be considered
a “reasonable accommodation.” As the brief explains: “A
company’s offer is not a reasonable accommodation unless
it removes the conflicts between the employee’s work
duties and his reasonable beliefs.” Therefore, the
brief contends, the case was improperly dismissed, and should
be sent back to the trial court to determine if it would
be an undue hardship on Home Depot to provide Baker with
Sundays off.

New
Religious Freedom Publications Available from the Department
of Justice

The
Department of Justice is pleased to announce the release
of three publications designed to educate citizens about
their religious freedom rights under federal law. First,
we have updated Protecting
the Religious Freedom of All,
the 4" x 9" booklet first printed in
2002, which provides an overview of the statutes protecting
religious freedom that are enforced by the Civil Rights Division,
along with information about how to report violations. Second,
our new color A Guide To Religious Land
Use Issues focuses on the land-use provisions of
the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act
of 2000 (RLUIPA). Finally, Know Your
Rights: Federal Laws Against Religious Discrimination is
a one-page color fact sheet providing a brief summary of
the laws protecting individuals and institutions from religion-based
discrimination. All three may be accessed and printed at
the links above, or can be ordered in hard copies in quantity
by contacting Jacqueline Greene at (202) 514-5410 or Jacqueline.Greene@usdoj.gov.